by Charles Kirkland Jr.
Two best friends find themselves on the trip of a lifetime and maybe the last trip of their life as they go on a secret mission in The Spy Who Dumped Me.
Today is Audrey’s (Mila Kunis) thirtieth birthday! Sadly, her boyfriend Drew (Justin Theroux) sends her a break-up text that same morning, one year after they first got together. To cheer her up Morgan, (Kate McKinnon) Audrey’s best friend who happens to always carry a microphone, throws her an impromptu birthday party. Of course, Audrey doesn’t feel much like a party since she is upset over the break-up. Like a good friend, Morgan sends Drew a text from Audrey’s phone saying that they are going to burn his things. Meanwhile, we discover that Drew is a spy on a mission and is in the middle of a foot chase in another country when he receives the text. Still in the middle of escaping the mission, Drew responds that he will come for his things tomorrow. The next day while at work in a Whole Foods knock-off grocery store, Audrey is kidnapped by the CIA and informed that her ex is a spy and they are trying to find him. Audrey, in disbelief, tells them everything that she knows except that he said that he is coming to get his things. Audrey rushes home to tell Morgan what has happened when Drew arrives and explains the text was to protect her. Of course, Drew has been tracked and gets shot in the apartment. With his last breaths, Drew gives Audrey a mission to complete for the safety of the world. Burdened with the mission, Audrey has to determine whether she should honor the dying request of The Spy Who Dumped Me.
The Spy Who Dumped Me is the second big-screen movie written and directed by Susanna Fogel (Life Partners). Much like a star athlete, Fogel suffers from a sort of sophomore slump in this movie. While the plot line is decently composed and seems to have a good amount of intrigue, Fogel’s comedy timing is off. While the Morgan character is intended for comic relief, she actually is quite grating. In fact, many of the scenes of the movie that are meant for laughter often fall very short and deliver mild chuckles at best.
Kate McKinnon herself seems to go to the same well too often. This movie’s Morgan is a near cousin to Kiwi from Rough Night and a dumber cousin to Dr. Jillian Holtzmann from the Ghostbusters reboot. McKinnon monopolizes the screen with a performance that we have seen before and have seen much better. To her own benefit, McKinnon needs to expand herself just a bit more before she becomes typecast.
To be honest, the same can be said for this whole movie. It has been done before and much better. Ever since James Bond hit the cinema screens, there have been scores of imitations and parodies some good (Spies Like Us, The Man Who Knew Too Little) and some bad (Leonard Part 6, The Tuxedo). Poor jokes, a less than original story concept and Kate McKinnon land The Spy Who Dumped Me squarely on the bad side of the scale.
Rated R for violence, language throughout, some crude sexual material and graphic nudity, The Spy Who Dumped Me is a horribly sad and unfunny take on the spy genre. Definitely a step backward in spy spoofs, you would better entertained by watching Melissa McCarthy’s Spy, the current gold standard for this genre.
Grade: C-